


Perpetuating Cycles

by BitterPill



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Rayla finishes the job, starts in medias res
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 08:38:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19884757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BitterPill/pseuds/BitterPill
Summary: Assassins don't decide right and wrong, only life and death.Rayla is determined to be a good assassin.





	Perpetuating Cycles

Prince Ezran, her target, her redemption, is right there. Hiding behind the other boy, he’s… younger than she thought.

Older than the Dragon Prince was, though.

A prince for a prince, all’s fair. No matter what Callum– what the older boy thinks.

She stalks them, blades out. They shrink back. Scared. Defiant. This isn’t what she thought this mission would be, chasing down children—

No. This is what earned her disgrace in the first place. This hesitation.

Assassins do not decide right and wrong, assassins deal in life and death.

Prince Ezran – her target, the enemy, the descendant of dark mages and dragon slayers – peers from behind the other boy’s legs. “Please, just let me show you something.”

Her blades lower, just a touch, and the Prince’s eyes brighten. He turns toward a pedestal, takes his eyes off her. The other one is distracted too.

This is her chance, to redeem herself, her family. To wipe the stain of her parent’s desertion away. To get rid of the burning shame of her childhood.

“Here, look,” The Prince entices again.

No. She will not. He is human, she is an elf. She will not bend to his will.

Her eyes narrow as she reassesses the room. Creepy still, the jars of animals and artefacts of dark magic are horrific. Single sure exit point. Isolated, though. This is not where the guards are. Her target is – young, inexperienced, a ch— will not be difficult. The other boy is barely a threat, and that’s only because the book he’s carrying might hurt if used in the right way. The frog, toad, thing, is out of the Prince’s hands, and she knows its trick now.

They’re distracted.

The Prince is still behind the other boy, but ‘behind’ is all relative.

She jumps. To one wall, then the other and a flip over their heads. It’s showy, sudden, three steps to get her to the other side of them and they can barely keep up. They’re off-guard (though how much of a guard do they really have down here with no weapons, expecting her to give them a chance—

In. Out.

It’s quick. Life and death, without suffering, she can say that much.

At least, she can until the reaction comes.

The other boy spins, still catching up, alerted to the Prince’s collapse. “Ezran!”

Prince Ezran had barely made a noise, air pushed out of his lungs like a punch to the gut (like a blade to the gut).

The other boy goes down with him. “Ezran! Ez, Ez, no, come on.” Hands pat over the Prince’s body, across the growing circle of blood, find the hole in the clothes, in the flesh beneath. “No, no, no, it isn’t fair.” Callum remembers her presence enough to look up at her. Pale, eyes wide, shaking. “This isn’t fair!” It might be angry, or it might be a plea, but the Prince twitches and her existence is forgotten again.

“Ezran, Ez, I’m here, come on, you’re alright.” Callum strokes the Prince’s cheek. “You’re- Ez? Ez, you can’t, you can’t.”

He needs to put pressure on the wound, she wants to say. Stop the bleeding. Flapping at him won’t help anything.

She doesn’t want to say that, she wants the Prince dead. (It isn’t about want, it’s about duty.)

Callum presses a hand against the Prince’s belly, earning another twitch, a hiss – not as quick a death as she intended. Callum looks around the room desperately. He looks from jar to morbid jar. A room full of magic stored for use in preserved corpses and he can’t access a single drop of it when he most needs it.

Ha, she wants to say, see what dark magic gets you? Nothing. All those creatures died for nothing and you can’t even help yourself.

She doesn’t say it though. Because Callum is scared and desperate and his hope is leaking out of him like the blood spreading under his hands.

He whines, an involuntary noise, air pushing out between his teeth with each panicked breath as no help presents itself.

He looks back at the Prince. “Come on,” he decides, “Let’s get you up, Ez. Ezran?”

There’s no response to words, but as he moves the Prince’s body, picks it up, there’s a moan, there’s still life (it was supposed to be quick).

“That’s right, Ezran,” says Callum, “I’ll get you to help. It’s gonna be fine, alright, Ezran?” Callum says the words, as he picks up and hugs the Prince close, but his face crumples as his hand finds the hole on the other side of his brother’s body. “I’ve got you.” His breaths are uneven. “I’ve got you, Ezran.”

The Prince’s skin is greying.

Callum spares no glance for her, turning and bolting for the stairs, shouting, shouting for help, guards, anyone, Dad.

Rayla is left alone in this place of death. Surrounded by it. Dark magic is wrong, but what she did is (not a matter of right or wrong, but of life and death).

In a daze, she goes to the pedestal, the distraction she used. She pulls the cover off it.

And stares.

It’s beautiful.

She feels ill.

She presses her ear to the egg and hears the heartbeat within. Her eyes drag towards the cooling blood, running between the flagstones on the floor. She squeezes her eyes tight and takes a deep breath. Death fills her nose as she wraps her arms around the egg, picking it up. They have to get it back to Xadia. And she would be a fool to think no one would come down here for her.

That galvanises her. She thinks of the Dragon Queen, losing King and Prince in one night, and now the Prince can be returned. _This_ Prince can be returned.

Must be returned.

She makes her way out. The path is empty, but for blood spatters and jelly handprints. Rayla takes a breath and pushes onward, turns away from trail as soon as she can, guards will surely come from that direction.

It’s… easy.

Getting out is easy. The guards are in disarray, alarms are raised and they rush to where they are needed, easily missing the lone elf in the shadows. She was born for this work. No climbing a sheer cliff this time. She walks (darts and creeps and hides her way) out of the front gate. The moon is full, she’s at her strongest, her stealthiest, the guards haven’t a chance of spotting her. (More chance than defenceless children)

The pressure at her wrist loosens. She ducks behind a tree and watches as one of her bindings turns red (red, of course it’s red, as if there hasn’t been enough of that tonight) and falls away. She should probably pick it up, but her arms are full and she can’t and some traitorous part of her hopes it’s the King.

She returns to their camp, where she should have been waiting all this time. She settles on the rock they left her on. But she didn’t wait. She took her first life, and she saved the Dragon Prince. She has redeemed herself. Surely, she’s gone above and beyond. She defied Runaan’s orders but this must make up for it. It has to. She…

She takes out a blade, carefully, still holding the egg with her other arm. She should clean it, she needs to keep her tools in the best condition and this is not in best condition. It’s red, browning, sticky, flaking, trailing the sound of a punched out breath and panicked crying of _Ez? Ez! Ezran, no n_ —

She doesn’t have time. The others could come back at any time and she has to be ready to move. Has to keep the egg in her arms. It’s the most important thing now. She can’t lose it, can’t let anything get to it. She can’t let Xadia down.

She waits.

Her gaze draws towards the highest tower of the castle.

It looks peaceful. But death is in there. So much. And dark magic. She turns away from it and holds the egg, stroking it as though she can soothe the baby inside and keep the darkness away from him.

Her stomach clenches when the pressure on her other wrist loosens and drops away, red in its righteousness, in justice served, in retaliation.

Retaliation which will beget another. Like the boy had said (will he be king now?). But this is fair, a King for a King, a Prince for a Prince.

But she can’t fool herself that they won’t strike back.

And it’s hard to feel superior, like the aggrieved party, when she’s killed a child in front of his brother. When without him she would never have found the Dragon Prince to return, would have still thought him dead and lost and left him here in this castle to whatever fate they had planned for him. Whatever fate the mage had planned. The boys, those boys trusting enough to turn their backs on her (it was a trick) to show her the egg (they just wanted to gain her trust) the egg they all thought dead (they would have tricked her once her guard was down and- and-). It was so easy. In, out.

The sky starts to lighten.

No one comes.

She’s twitchy now. Whatever has happened inside, they will search the woods, they will scour the land for her (and her fellow assassins?).

She gathers what she needs from their camp, leaves some for the rest. She carves a sign into a tree and moves. She moves quickly, silently. Whatever has happened to her team, the egg is most important. She leaves marks on her trail. Small things, ones only her team will know to look for. Marks for this occasion, in case there is someone to follow after her.

She cannot be caught after all this. She will return the Dragon Prince to Xadia.

**Author's Note:**

> I might continue this to some kind of conclusion. Let me know if you would be at all interested.


End file.
